The Secrets of Search Engine Optimization

Greg JarboePresident of SEO-PRPRSA Teleseminar

November 17, 2009

Ivy Lee invented press release for The Pennsylvania Railroad in 1906

• Following an accident, Lee convinced the railroad “to supply the press and public of the United States prompt and accurate information”• The New York Times published the press release verbatim as a “Statement from the Road”

SEO-PR invented optimized press release for SEMPO in 2003

Source: Google News, Sept. 15, 2003

I’ll share the six secrets to optimizing press releases for news search engines• Who uses news search engines?• What search terms are they likely to use?• Where do you put these terms in your press

releases?• When do you add links?• Why should you optimize your press releases?• How do you measure the results of press

release optimization?

Millions of Americans use Yahoo! News, AOL News or Google News

Source: Nielsen Online, March 2009

More knowledge workers read press releases than trade journals

Source: InformationWeek, June 6, 2006

73.8% of journalists and bloggers use Google and/or blog search

Source: PRWeek/PR Newswire Media Survey, March 31, 2008

In many industries, online publications and blogs are the new trade press

Source: Search Engine Watch, Dec. 18, 2007

Conduct keyword research to find the terms people are likely to use

• Think about the words users would type to find your pages• Brainstorm keyword categories that address your customer’s wants• Compile the brainstormed keywords for further review of traffic potential, competition, and other factors

Source: Elliance, Search Engine Land, Oct. 23, 2007

Conduct keyword research using one or more of these free tools

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool• https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

• Google Insights for Search– http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

• Google Suggest for Google News– http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/suggest-on-google-ne

ws.html

• Microsoft adCenter Labs keyword research technologies– http://adlab.microsoft.com/Keyword-Research.aspx

• WordStream’s free keyword tool*– http://www.wordstream.com/keywords/

*Disclosure: WordStream is a client

More news search interest worldwide in press release than news release

Source: Google Insights for Search, Nov. 7, 2009

Keyword research involves more than looking up search frequencies

• Optimize each page around the top 2 or 3 phrases that you would like it to be found for

• Average search term is now 3 words long, so use longer phrases• Use “Russian nesting

dolls” vs. “nesting dolls”

Source: Elliance, Search Engine Land, Nov. 6, 2007

Incorporate search terms into your headline and lead paragraph

• News search engines scan the headline and at least the first 100 words of news articles• So, make sure your press release actually includes your target terms – particularly in the headline and first few sentences

Source: The New York Times, April 9, 2006

Herb Kelleher went nuts when he saw cheap in his press release

Source: Southwest Airlines, Jan. 30, 2004

Parents magazine editor offered picture taking tips instead of news

Source: PRWeb, May 28, 2008

We had to violate AP Style in order to optimize Monitor’s press release

Source: The Christian Science Monitor, August 11, 2006

Add links intended to help people find interesting, related content

• The unique tracking link in this Southwest Airlines press release offered a complete list of fares• It took people to a unique landing page, enabling Southwest to track over $80,000 in ticket sales back to this optimized release

Source: The Measurement Standard, April 6, 2004

Second link in some press releases got more clicks than the other links

168

318

6078

5129

272

324

118110

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Fuel economy Roadster Air cleaners

1st link 2nd link 3rd link 4th link

Source: ConsumerReports.org log files

Head of Google’s Webspam team says main benefit is links in articles

• “I’m not against doing press releases; press releases can be a useful part of getting traffic and building a brand.• “For ranking in Google, however, the main benefit of a press release is not direct links or PageRank from the press release directly; it’s primarily the people who decide to write an article and link because of that.”

Source: Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google and SEO, Dec. 11, 2005

Buzzing blogger community can be excellent place to generate interest

• Best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, useful content• Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the buzzing blogger community can be an excellent place to generate interest

Sources: Technorati: State of the Blogosphere 2008, and Google Webmaster Help Center

Why should you optimize your releases for news search engines?

• Traditionally, readers first picked a publication and then look for headlines that interested them• News search engines offer links to several articles on every story, so readers first decide what subject interests them and then select which publishers’ accounts of each story they will read

Harold Lasswell created classic model of communications in 1948

Who says whatin which channelto whom with what effect?

If things are bleak in journalism, then are they even bleaker in PR?• America’s newspapers are getting smaller– 5,900 full-time newsroom jobs, 11%, cut in 2008– By end of 2009, newsrooms of American daily newspapers

may employ 25% fewer people than in 2001

• Ad Age estimates that just under 150,000 people worked in magazines in 2008, down from about 170,000 in 2000

• In local television, news staffs, already too small to adequately cover their communities, are being cut at unprecedented rates

Source: The State of the News Media 2009

News search engines reverse classic model of communications

Who seeks whatin which channelfrom whom with what effect?

How do you measure the results of press release optimization?

4 optimized press releases linked to $2.5 million in Southwest sales

Source: Southwest Airlines, July 15, 2004

Publicity drove 450,000 visitors to Christian Science Monitor website

• Within first 24 hours, more than 450,000 unique visitors flooded CSMonitor.com, seven times its daily average in July• Page views for the first day broke through the 1 million mark, a massive increase from the site’s July average of 121,247 page views per day• The Huffington Post generated 3.4 times more visitors than ABC News

Source: WebSideStory, Aug. 13-28, 2006

Queries for promoted brands up 38.9%, other brands up 5.1%

Source: Meredith, Dec. 5, 2008

I’ve shared six secrets of optimizing press releases for news search engines• Who uses news search engines?• What search terms are they likely to use?• Where do you put these terms in your press

releases?• When do you add links?• Why should you optimize your press releases?• How do you measure the results of press

release optimization?

Press release optimization reflects paradigm shift in PR and journalism

• As Columbus discovered, training the crews of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria how to sail west was a relatively straightforward task• The real challenge was convincing Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand that they wouldn’t fall of the edge of the world

Source: WebProNews, Jan. 7, 2004

Two weeks ago, The New York Times published a press release verbatim

Source: The New York Times, Nov. 4, 2009

The play-back for today’s PRSA event runs through January 17, 2010